How can a military buy fighter jets that the seller has kill switches for?
How can a military buy fighter jets that the seller has kill switches for?
I've seen a few articles now that US fighter jets have kill switches in them, so the US could just render them useless for anyone they've sold them to.
Is this true? It sounds insane to me, I've always assumed that countries that buy these jets have full control over them. It's a gaping hole in your defence if you don't.
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They don't need them.
Stop selling spare parts and they will soon be useless.
They are incredibly maintenance intense even in peace time. In wartime even more so because even minor combat damage adds up.
Iran bought 79 F-14 in 1974. Revolution and arms embargo 1979. In 1984 they had 15 airworthy planes kept in shape by taking parts from other F-14s.
They have since got some spare parts from hostage deals and the black market. Probably reverse engineering too so they have about 40 of them flyable. But the 5 first year has 80% of the fleet grounded should say something about it.
Turns out America's greateast weapoin in its fight against terrorism is the quality of its engineering.
I wouldn't expect jets from other countries to be any different. Aircraft in general get a lot of inspection and maintenance. Military jets planes push the limits of what their materials and systems can handle, and it takes a toll.
Idk how credible the site below is, but they claim the F-16 averages 15 hours of inspections ad maintenance for every hour of flight time. Also that military jets are generally only mission-ready about 50%-75% of the time, which means they spend an awful lot of their useful lives in the inspection and maintenance queues:
https://simpleflying.com/military-aircraft-maintenance/Yeah, I was being a bit cheeky - I wouldn't step on any jet plane that hasn't had access to official spare parts for a few years.
I just found it amusing F-14s were bought in the mid-70s, which I guess is around the time many would say the quality of American cars also began dropping.
I would think that any decent military would stockpile any spare parts they would need to 2 years.
I understand if the supply stops they will eventually run out, but this is basic assurances that I'd think any military worth its salt would have in place when buying weapons.